Sunday, August 17, 2014

Ready. Aim. ADD!

You have a target with six rings, bearing the numbers 16, 17, 23, 24,
39, and 40. How can you score exactly 100 points, by shooting at the
target.

I find it odd that there's no "using the fewest arrows" clause to this puzzle. Anyway, we have an answer. Or, to give credit where credit is due, Henry has an answer. He's visiting us for the weekend.

And because you went to elementary school and can add, you also have an answer, which is my cue to offer you this link to NPR's Contact Us page so that you can mostly easily send in your answer!

As I mentioned, Henry's here. I asked him for the Photo Section word, and he gave me URDE (also URDY and URDEE) which in heraldry means pointed. Even with all three spellings I couldn't get six photos, so I added URDU. Henry likes his little jokes.

Time for

This is where we ask you how many entries you think NPR will get for the
challenge above. If you want to win, leave a comment with your guess
for the range of entries NPR will receive. First come first served, so
read existing comments before you guess. Or skip the comments and send
an email with your pick to Magdalen (at) Crosswordman (dot) com. Ross
and I guess last, just before we publish the Thursday post. After the
Thursday post is up, the entries are closed.

The winner gets a choice: they can receive a puzzle
book of our choosing or they can ask that a charitable contribution is
made in the winner's honor. As of this week, we are providing an
alternative to the Red Cross. If the winner wishes, we will make a contribution to his/her NPR station. Send us the call letters and we'll do the rest.

Ross totally called last week. He said on Wednesday, "What was the winning range from last week because that's what I want this week." 350 won both weeks, so good call Ross. Unfortunately, B. Haven had the same great idea, so B. Haven's choice on Thursday pipped Ross's. B., let us know if you want a book, or a gift to the Red Cross or your NPR
station.

Our tie-break rule: In the event
that a single round number is announced with a qualifier such as
"about" or "around" (e.g., "We received around 1,200 entries."), the
prize will be
awarded to the
entrant who picked the range including that precise
number, e.g., 551 - 600 wins if the announced range is "around 600." We
retain the discretion to award the prize to an entrant who picked the
adjacent range (e.g., 601-650) if that entrant had not
already won
a prize. In the event that
both entrants had won a
prize already or neither had,
then to the earlier of the
two entries on the
famous judicial principle of
"First Come First Serve,"
(or in technical legal jargon,
"You Snooze, You Lose").
As of January, 2014, this rule is officially even more complicated than
it's ever been, but at least it's consistent with what we actually do..

I came up with an answer fairly quickly, but Magdalen's comment now makes me question the appropriateness of my answer. It is simple to prove that my answer uses the greatest possible number of arrows, darts, or bursts from Mendo Jim's hardware, but to prove that fewer of these projectiles can work is something I have not been able to do. I suspect, but have not proved, that there is only one solution.

I'll take 851-900 please.

Phil

For fun, I tried scrolling through the "prove you're not a robot" numbers to see whether any would provide the answer. The first one came close, but nothing gave the actual answer.